"Let's do this fast," Remo pressed.
"That was Feyodov," Anna insisted, struggling to break free of his grip. "I cannot let him escape."
"Dammit, Anna, stop making friends and help out here," Remo snapped. "He's not going anywhere. And you're the one who keeps saying the whole world's gonna go kerplooey."
The urgency of his words hit hard. The fight draining from her, she hurried over to the last console. Bracing her gun against it, she slipped into Melvin Horowitz's seat.
"The system is locked to fire," Anna announced after a cursory examination.
On the screen the counter flew below the sixty-second mark. Nearby television screens displayed images of the space shuttle on its Florida launch pad. "Pull the plug," Remo commanded.
"It isn't a hair dryer with a cord plugged into the wall. To dismantle it would take time we do not have."
As Anna's mind raced desperately for a solution, Remo glanced at the Master of Sinanju.
Sweat had broken out across the old man's forehead.
Anna's earlier assessment had been right. Because of his advanced age, the Korean was feeling the effects worse than Remo. Not that the younger Master of Sinanju was immune. Remo doubted either of them could survive if they were this close to the weapon when it discharged.
"You better get out of here, Little Father," Remo insisted. "Anna and I will take it from here."
"If it cannot be stopped, there is no point in any of us staying," Chiun replied.
It was true. Remo nodded agreement, turning to Anna. "He's right," he said. "Let's amscray." Anna had been looking desperately around the area. From where she sat she had a partial view of the statue's wide interior. A sliver of blue sky was visible at the top. Near it, something glimmered with reflected light.
She spun excitedly to Remo.
"The mirrors!" she announced. Breathlessly, she pointed up to the very top of the slender tower that stretched up from the floor at the center of the stone statue. "Shatter them and the beam will be unfocused."
Picking up the thread, Remo looked up the tower. "Done," he said. He whirled to the Master of Sinanju. "Get Anna out of here, Little Father. I'll see you on the other side."
Anna was about to object when she felt a firm hand grab her around the waist. In a trice she was up on the Master of Sinanju's shoulder and the old man was bounding back into the depths of the long tunnel.
Alone, Remo raced out into the belly of Huitzilopochtli.
As he flew across the floor, his internal clock told him there were only forty-nine seconds remaining. Boris Feyodov had made it as far as Zen Bower's body. His breathing ragged, the general lay next to the ice cream man's corpse. Blood gurgled from between his dying lips.
At Remo's appearance, Feyodov's eyes rolled open.
"You come to me at last," the old general coughed. Wincing in pain, he pressed his hand more firmly against his bleeding side. His pale fingers were already stained red.
"Love to chitchat with the suicidal general," Remo said as he flew past, "but I've got work to do."
A long access ladder ran up the side of the slender tower. Remo began scurrying rapidly up the metal rungs.
As Remo flew up the four-story tower, Feyodov's weak voice trailed after him.
"Work? You were supposed to work for me. You and the old one," the general called. "You never came. But she did. Thanks to you she took the last scraps of my life." His tone grew cryptic. "And she took even more from you."
Remo found that he was forced to concentrate more than usual during his ascent. Staving off lightheadedness, he was doing his best to ignore the ramblings of the dying man.
The ladder ended at a circular platform. By the time Remo reached it, only thirty seconds remained. The cupped mirrors that focused the energy of the particle stream were aimed into the eastern sky.
"Ask her about the Institute," Feyodov called. "Ask her about Mactep. Ask her about what she-" he paused for a pained gasp "-what she... stole from you."
It was the intensity with which the words were spoken. From the top of the tower platform, Remo glanced down.
Far below, a thin smile touched the general's ashen lips. Pink froth bubbled from between them. No time to ask.
Remo was about to shatter the thick mirrors when another thought occurred to him.
With two swift swats he cracked the mirrors from their swivel bases and repositioned them, each aimed in a different direction. His work done, he leaped from the platform over to the uppermost metal catwalk that rimmed the interior of the big statue. He scrambled up the inner wall of the statue, disappearing over the edge.
At the bottom of the hollow interior, Boris Feyodov watched Remo slip from sight.
Whatever the young one had done to forestall Feyodov's revenge, it was too late. It would come. Perhaps not this day and not as he had expected it to, but it was inevitable. The men from Sinanju didn't know it, but one way or another the former Red Army general would have some small vengeance.
A smile still on his lips, General Boris Feyodov closed his weary eyes. And when the death he had feared for so many years finally came to claim the old soldier, it was like welcoming an old friend.
Chapter 32
Brandy Brand was standing anxiously on the sidewalk at the edge of the Barkley common when she saw Remo pop like a jack-in-the-box from out of Huitzilopochtli's stone head.
His descent was so rapid that at first she thought he was falling. He was halfway down the face when Chiun appeared from the door of the city hall. Anna Chutesov was flung over the old man's shoulder like a sack of potatoes.
Remo touched ground even as Chiun was darting down the steps. Racing full out, the two men met on the common. Side by side they tore across the grass toward Brandy.
The four bomb-filled duffel bags were at Brandy's feet. After Chiun had dropped Anna next to the FBI agent, the two men scooped up the bags, one in each hand.
"Bombs away, Little Father," Remo said tightly. "But I didn't set the timers yet," Brandy insisted. Remo and Chiun ignored her. Hauling back, they hurled their bundles high into the California sky. The four bags became specks of black in the vast blue backdrop.
Brandy barely had time to see them drop neatly, one after the other, inside the hollow head of Huitzilopochtli before she felt herself being swept off her feet.
With Brandy tucked up under one arm, Remo took off like a shot. Chiun kept pace with him, once more carting Anna.
With every racing step the old man seemed to grow more vigorous. Remo, too, quickly sloughed off the disharmonizing effects of the tunnel. They were two city blocks away from the town square when the ground began to shake.
It was a low, protracted rumble that started at the center of town and rolled toward the Barkley suburbs. Once they had both determined they were at a safe distance, Remo and Chiun stopped running. They deposited the women on the sidewalk.
A mile from the center of town, all four of them looked back in the direction from which they had come.
The Barkley skyline had changed. Over the nearest buildings something was missing. For the first time since they had arrived in town, the evil eyes of Huitzilopochtli did not look out over the small California community.
The statue was gone. In its place was empty air. And then a column of dust rose up from the distant point where the ancient god had stood, obliterating the cheery pastel-blue sky.
IT TOOK half an hour for the dust to clear. When Remo, Chiun and the others returned to Barkley's center, they found the buildings around the grassy square in ruins.